Fan

In ancient China, the term fan became associated with a basic concept within Daoism: the Daodejing remarks "Reversal is the movement of the Way ... Being is born from nonbeing." Daoist texts use fan in three interconnected meanings: as 'return to the root', 'cyclical return', and 'return to the contrary'. In Chinese cosmology, everything in the universe emerges from the primordial Dao, continually transforms, and inevitably returns to it, which parallels the eternal return in philosophy or cyclic model in physical cosmology. Fan is also significant in Chinese alchemy and Daoist meditation. Terminology The word is relatively common in both ancient and modern Chinese, and is semantically complex. A dictionary of pre-modern Chinese lists five translated meanings: 'turn over', 'invert', 'turn upward' 'turn back', 'reverse', 'go back', 'revert', 'return', 'turn round', 'repeat', 'do again' go counter to', 'contrary', 'opposite', 'oppose; rebel', 'revolt look inside', 'introspection on the contrary', 'nevertheless', 'despite (the foregoing)' The second meaning is also unambiguously written as , a phono-semantic compound combining as a phonetic element with the radical . This character has two alternate pronunciations: , and —also written as , with the radical .